Latest / Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield / DMA#43: The Nooks & Crannies of New York City with Tom Chitty

Transcript

DMA#43: The Nooks & Crannies of New York City with Tom Chitty · Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone.
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SPEAKER_00: While you're all shuffling in and taking your seats,
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I'm going to introduce you all to my guest on today's edition
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of Draw Me Anything.
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SPEAKER_00: This is fellow black hoodie wearing fellow...
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SPEAKER_00: fellow man with an accent in the country that he is not from,
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SPEAKER_00: who also does New York cartoons and amazing illustrations.
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SPEAKER_00: Welcome my guest, the wonderful Tom Chitty.
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SPEAKER_00: How are you, mate?
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SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
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SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
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SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
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SPEAKER_01: You sounded very Australian then, by the way, when you leaned in.
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SPEAKER_01: How are you, mate?
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SPEAKER_00: How are you, mate?
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SPEAKER_00: Good day.
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SPEAKER_01: How are you going?
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SPEAKER_01: You're amping it up for me.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: I went back to Australia for Christmas,
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SPEAKER_00: and I noticed myself slipping back into some old Aussie-isms.
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SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take long.
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SPEAKER_00: Do you do that when you go back to the UK?
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SPEAKER_01: I probably do.
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SPEAKER_01: I probably do.
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SPEAKER_01: People have overheard me on the phone to people in the UK,
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SPEAKER_01: and when I've come off,
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SPEAKER_01: they've said,
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SPEAKER_01: you sounded so English.
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SPEAKER_01: So I think it must happen.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm not really aware of it, but yeah, there are a few things.
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SPEAKER_01: You have to adapt initially.
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People don't understand what you say when you're putting
1:15
something in the rubbish.
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SPEAKER_01: You need to say garbage.
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SPEAKER_01: So yeah, something's changed, but yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, code switching.
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SPEAKER_00: I was obviously more familiar with your work before.
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SPEAKER_00: I knew anything about you.
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SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know anything about your background.
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But there was something very particular about your style that
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drew me to your work
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SPEAKER_00: and your humor.
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SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this guy's not American.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't think this guy is not from this planet.
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Because you do this sort of world building with your cartoons
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where your characters look like...
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they're just like of a different world but they're so
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consistent and they're so
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your style is so well formed and it's just um as soon as you
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see a tom chitty
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cartoon in the in the new york you're like oh great i'm like
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getting back it's like
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charles adams like getting back into someone's world you know
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like you're like the
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SPEAKER_00: the style is the world you know what i mean does that make sense
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SPEAKER_01: Uh, it does.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: I'm obviously going to push back on the,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: comparison to child and that's be silly,
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SPEAKER_01: but,
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SPEAKER_01: um,
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SPEAKER_01: yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: it was a bit of an accident actually,
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SPEAKER_01: because when I went to animation school,
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SPEAKER_01: I w I was kind of,
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SPEAKER_01: I had the wrong way round.
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SPEAKER_01: I was doing the design first and the ideas second.
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SPEAKER_01: And my tutor was like, stop designing, just come up with ideas.
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SPEAKER_01: And what that meant was,
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SPEAKER_01: I dropped this idea that my sketchbook needed to look finished.
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SPEAKER_01: Then these drawings were more like handwriting.
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SPEAKER_01: Having gone back to that level, it's built back up.
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SPEAKER_01: And I don't really want to push it too far because they are quite weird.
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SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: to be honest,
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SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you like them,
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SPEAKER_01: but I've had some negative feedback on the weirdness.
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SPEAKER_01: You know, why do they look like aliens?
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SPEAKER_01: Why don't they have hands?
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SPEAKER_01: Why don't they have noses?
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SPEAKER_01: So over the years,
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SPEAKER_01: I've been pragmatic and added things in when I've had criticism from,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: people who are in a position to buy my work.
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SPEAKER_00: So it's from editors and art directors and things, right?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes and no.
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uh for feedback they give it to you so who knows whether i
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needed to adapt but i
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think uh sometimes you think you know what's the most important
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thing is it that
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you you cling on to you know your integrity i suppose that is
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quite important or
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you you adapt to to put your work in different different places
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so yeah i don't
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SPEAKER_01: No, that's interesting.
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SPEAKER_00: I noticed Paul North just joined as well.
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SPEAKER_00: There's another cartoonist that I similarly,
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SPEAKER_00: when I see his work,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
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SPEAKER_00: ah,
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SPEAKER_00: that's like another world.
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SPEAKER_00: His style is so, you could spot it a mile away.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Paul's very, very funny.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Funny as hell.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
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SPEAKER_00: Some of the best cartoonists I've ever seen.
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SPEAKER_00: Hi, Paul.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: so I wanted to talk to you,
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SPEAKER_00: among other things,
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SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you chiefly about your new book that you have,
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particularly that you have coming out and that you're about to
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start a Kickstarter
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SPEAKER_00: for on April 1st.
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SPEAKER_00: And you very generously sent me an advance copy of it.
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SPEAKER_00: And when I started reading it,
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SPEAKER_00: I obviously had that same thing where I'm like,
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SPEAKER_00: oh,
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SPEAKER_00: God,
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SPEAKER_00: here we go.
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SPEAKER_00: We're walking into Chitty's world.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's just the most...
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SPEAKER_00: You can't skim this book.
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SPEAKER_00: There's so much detail and attention to detail.
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SPEAKER_00: Even the words, even the language in the book is so well crafted.
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SPEAKER_00: The syllables,
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SPEAKER_00: the sounds,
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SPEAKER_00: it's almost like,
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SPEAKER_00: speaking of world building,
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you've got this like Silmarillion style sort of world with maps
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and characters and
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SPEAKER_00: language and names and creatures.
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SPEAKER_00: And there it is.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at the same thing as I'm saying this, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Nooks and Crannies of New York.
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SPEAKER_00: This book, Nooks and Crannies of New York, compiled by yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the Chronicles of Baron von Schuggenheimer.
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SPEAKER_00: Schuggenheimer.
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SPEAKER_00: Schuggenheimer.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really easy to spell when you're Googling.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: How did this even come about?
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SPEAKER_00: This thing is ridiculous.
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SPEAKER_00: I can't put it down.
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SPEAKER_00: I honestly can't put it down.
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SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't want to interrupt, really.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: You're being very kind.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, how did it start?
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SPEAKER_01: I did...
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SPEAKER_01: I did a one page, uh, I've got it here.
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SPEAKER_01: Why, why, why, why don't I, uh, drop the pretense that I'm not prepared.
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Um,
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I did this,
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I did this,
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this is the kind of the,
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the history of the hat bot.
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SPEAKER_01: Um,
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SPEAKER_01: it's a very silly,
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SPEAKER_01: brief history of,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: robots that were designed to look after your hats.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, that was about, uh, six years ago for the American bystander.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: And, um, I really liked it and, uh,
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uh,
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I sort of,
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I liked the idea that I could use this character to just like
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explore anything.
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SPEAKER_01: Basically he could do a guide to anything.
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SPEAKER_01: And then I guess,
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SPEAKER_01: I guess towards the end of the pandemic,
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SPEAKER_01: if we're still allowed to reference it,
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SPEAKER_01: um,
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SPEAKER_01: Michael,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: Gerber,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: the American bystander emailed me and said,
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SPEAKER_01: do you have any ideas for books?
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SPEAKER_01: Cause we're thinking of getting into books.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I, all of us do.
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SPEAKER_01: Uh,
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I didn't know whether any of them were any good and we kind of
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squished a few of
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SPEAKER_01: them in together.
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SPEAKER_01: So Baron von Schugenheimer.
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SPEAKER_01: And then I had this idea for a title for a book,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: New York,
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SPEAKER_01: instead of New York city,
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SPEAKER_01: New York chitty is so clever.
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SPEAKER_01: Um, but I, I draw, I draw prints here in Toronto.
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I sort of all the local neighborhoods and I had this idea that
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maybe I could do the
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SPEAKER_01: same thing for,
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SPEAKER_01: or in New York.
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SPEAKER_01: I could expense a trip to New York for three weeks and just wander around
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SPEAKER_01: pretending I was working,
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SPEAKER_01: that sort of thing.
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SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
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so we kind of squished that idea of big drawings of New York
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into Baron von
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SPEAKER_01: Schuggenheimer.
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SPEAKER_01: And then what it is essentially is a sketchbook.
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SPEAKER_01: You get to see my sketchbook, but it has a story.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, it feels... So I know that you're a demon for keeping a sketchbook.
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SPEAKER_00: I remember years ago reading your case for pencils entry,
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SPEAKER_00: which was like...
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You were talking about the pens you used and you were talking
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about the tools and
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SPEAKER_00: stuff,
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SPEAKER_00: but you really...
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SPEAKER_00: The thing that I came away from that with was that you...
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SPEAKER_00: I know it's one of those things you just hear a million times,
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SPEAKER_00: but you never quite take it in the same way.
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SPEAKER_00: But keeping a sketchbook is one of the best,
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SPEAKER_00: most essential sort of ways to just sort of develop ideas,
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SPEAKER_00: keep a process,
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SPEAKER_00: hone a style,
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SPEAKER_00: build out sort of
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just build out ideas.
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Like you,
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if you have the mindset that,
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well,
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no one's going to see this unless I share it.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, no one has to see any of this shit in the book.
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SPEAKER_00: It sort of frees you up to play.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing about sketchbooks is it really should be play.
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SPEAKER_00: And all these performative sketchbooks on Instagram with people going,
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SPEAKER_00: oh,
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SPEAKER_00: I just dashed this off.
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SPEAKER_01: I know, they are amazing, but yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: They're amazing, but they're not.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're not sketchbooks.
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SPEAKER_00: They're paintings.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, they're finished art.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
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SPEAKER_00: He's in his sketchbook.
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SPEAKER_00: My sketchbook looks like a serial killer.
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SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
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SPEAKER_00: It's all sorts of crazy shit.
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SPEAKER_00: And I would never show a soul.
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SPEAKER_00: But it's kind of getting the stuff out of your brain,
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SPEAKER_00: onto a page,
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SPEAKER_00: thinking visually,
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SPEAKER_00: and just kind of noodling around with silly ideas.
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SPEAKER_00: I know...
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SPEAKER_00: Bill Watterson used to do a lot of that.
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SPEAKER_00: Richard Thompson used to do it all the time.
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SPEAKER_00: And a lot of my favorite cartoonists always talked about it.
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But,
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you know,
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it never really sinks in until you do it and go,
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oh,
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yeah,
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sketchbooks.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: No, that's right.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think, I mean, I'm exactly the same.
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SPEAKER_01: Someone gave me the advice however long ago.
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And then after keeping three or four,
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you start to realize...
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I imagine...
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SPEAKER_01: I imagine it's useful in different ways to different people.
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SPEAKER_01: I find one of the really useful things about it is I don't have to,
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SPEAKER_01: we've all had that thing where we had a really great idea for a cartoon.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, we think it's a really great idea.
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Other people,
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other people are the judge,
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but like,
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I don't know,
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buying groceries or something.
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SPEAKER_01: And by the time you've gone home, you can't remember what it was.
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SPEAKER_01: It's so frustrating,
9:43
SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
9:43
SPEAKER_01: I,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: I,
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SPEAKER_01: I will literally now,
9:46
SPEAKER_01: now I'll,
9:47
SPEAKER_01: I'll,
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SPEAKER_01: I'll whip out,
9:48
SPEAKER_01: um,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:49
SPEAKER_01: the notes app on my phone,
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but always having a sketchbook with you means you can just kind
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of pause and write
9:53
SPEAKER_01: it down and you will forget it.
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SPEAKER_01: That's the thing.
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SPEAKER_01: But in six months,
9:58
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
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flick back through your sketchbook and you'll find stuff that
10:02
you wrote down sort
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SPEAKER_01: of out of nowhere.
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SPEAKER_01: And it's quite a good test.
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SPEAKER_01: I find if you look back at stuff that you did,
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SPEAKER_01: like,
10:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
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SPEAKER_01: let's say a year ago,
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SPEAKER_01: and some of it
10:14
all of it will be a little bit surprising because you can't
10:16
quite remember it.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: And some of it will kind of make you laugh.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:18
Almost like you're seeing it for the first time and then maybe
10:20
that's the stuff
10:21
SPEAKER_01: that you should pay attention to.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: It's very hard, isn't it?
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Like when you're putting a batch together,
10:28
SPEAKER_01: You press fire on it.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
10:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you're the same,
10:30
SPEAKER_01: you tell me,
10:31
SPEAKER_01: but I'm quite often working right up to the wire.
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SPEAKER_01: So then when I press fire on the email and then a couple of hours later,
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SPEAKER_01: I look at the batch,
10:40
SPEAKER_01: you see all the mistakes and you think,
10:42
SPEAKER_01: what?
10:42
Why did I think,
10:43
oh my God,
10:44
but luckily you get to have another go the following week.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: What's that like for you?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I'm exactly the same.
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SPEAKER_00: My greatest editorial tool is hitting send.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: truly,
10:54
I only ever see my mistakes and stuff as soon as I hit English
10:57
on aSubstack post or
10:59
SPEAKER_00: when I could send on an email.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's so nerve-wracking because in the back of my head,
11:04
SPEAKER_00: I still...
11:05
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like I do it on purpose.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I just do it to myself, but...
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I just think, okay, I think it's ready.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And then I've looked at it for too long,
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SPEAKER_00: and then I have lost all objectivity,
11:15
SPEAKER_00: and I just go,
11:16
SPEAKER_00: you know what,
11:17
SPEAKER_00: screw it,
11:17
SPEAKER_00: just send it,
11:18
SPEAKER_00: just send it.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And I futz about with the order of the cartoons in the batch,
11:24
SPEAKER_00: thinking,
11:25
SPEAKER_00: oh,
11:25
SPEAKER_00: if I put this one before this one,
11:26
SPEAKER_00: maybe it'll make that one seem funnier.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Just idiotic things that don't even matter, really.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: Well,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: maybe they're not idiotic,
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but the problem is you never get the feedback to know whether
11:33
they are or they
11:34
SPEAKER_01: aren't.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you used to.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: When you used to go in,
11:37
SPEAKER_00: you used to get feedback,
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SPEAKER_00: which I think is a big loss that we don't get to go in in person anymore.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Because Emma would give feedback if you bought in a batch in person.
11:46
And she'd sort of say,
11:47
instead of just like,
11:48
no,
11:49
no,
11:49
no,
11:50
no,
11:50
enjoy your lunch.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: It was like, no, but here's why.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess what I meant, yeah, that's great.
11:56
I mean,
11:58
I think I submitted twice in person to Bob and the same number
12:01
to Emma.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: I guess what I mean is like when you're putting it together,
12:07
SPEAKER_01: I do exactly what you just described,
12:08
SPEAKER_01: which is,
12:09
SPEAKER_01: well,
12:09
SPEAKER_01: that one should go first because that's really impressive.
12:12
And then I'll slide the weaker one in second and then I'll bump
12:15
it back up.
12:15
But there's absolutely no way of knowing whether the order that
12:20
you put them in is,
12:21
SPEAKER_01: we think we're putting together sort of,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: the next Radiohead album and it's really important what order they're in.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: But that's not what, that's really not what's happening.
12:30
Really what should happen is you should be,
12:32
you should send the one that you think is good.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: And it's just one every week, but you know.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: As you say, you don't know until you send it, do you?
12:41
SPEAKER_00: You don't.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: That's when you really feel it.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And I do resubs as well where I'm like,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: oh,
12:45
maybe this one will get another look in if I put it with these
12:49
other ones.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
12:51
There's a stupid science to it that probably makes absolutely
12:55
no difference.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: But we've now compared ourselves to both Charles Adams and Tom York,
13:00
SPEAKER_00: which we've really hit peak.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So it is at this point.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Your cartoons have been in The New Yorker since, what, 2014?
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Is that your first sale?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: When were you pitching?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Did you start pitching in 14?
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: I got lucky very early because I did what I gather.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: I have since gathered a lot of cartoonists did,
13:27
SPEAKER_01: which is that they basically asked Matt Diffie to do them a favor.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: And he's,
13:33
SPEAKER_01: I probably shouldn't say this in front of,
13:35
SPEAKER_01: uh,
13:35
SPEAKER_01: other people,
13:36
SPEAKER_01: but he's incredibly generous.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: And I, I, I practiced with him.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: And then when I sent my first batch, he'd already given me some, uh,
13:46
uh,
13:47
stern,
13:47
but loving feedback that had shaped it into something worth
13:50
looking at,
13:50
hopefully.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Um,
13:52
SPEAKER_01: and then,
13:52
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I got,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I got a sale,
13:54
SPEAKER_01: uh,
13:55
SPEAKER_01: shortly after I forget when exactly,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: that was an incredible month.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, that I didn't, I didn't think it was going to happen, but you know,
14:02
SPEAKER_01: You never really know.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: When was your first submission?
14:07
SPEAKER_00: First sale was to Bob.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I'd been pitching for years and years and years by like email.
14:13
And then I started pitching in person in 14,
14:15
which helped kind of put a face to a name.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And then I finally sold in 17.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And he was actually also pretty generous with advice.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, like Diffie, no holds barred, no beg your pardons.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: It was very direct, very sincere, but also very harsh.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: But it helped because I was like, oh, okay, all right.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Because I thought...
14:36
SPEAKER_00: In my head,
14:36
I think a lot of cartoonists kind of do this when they first
14:38
start pitching is they
14:39
SPEAKER_00: try and think,
14:39
SPEAKER_00: oh,
14:40
there's like a house style or I'll draw what I think they want
14:43
to see or what I
14:44
SPEAKER_00: think looks like a New Yorker cartoon.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: But the advisors always, no, no, no, no, dial it back.
14:49
Whatever your style is,
14:50
whatever your unique thing is,
14:51
that's what they want to see.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: They want to see what's different about you,
14:54
SPEAKER_00: different about your perspective,
14:55
SPEAKER_00: your sense of humor,
14:56
SPEAKER_00: your style,
14:57
SPEAKER_00: all that stuff.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Lean into that instead of trying to lean into whatever you think is.
15:01
we want to see and that's good advice i mean that i whenever
15:05
anyone asks me for
15:06
advice i'm like that's pretty much all i tell them is just like
15:09
lean into what's
15:09
unique about you yeah i i agree i think that i mean i think
15:13
really whether they're
15:15
in truth whether they're looking for that or not it's still
15:19
what you should do
15:19
SPEAKER_01: because you it's figuring out what it is i mean
15:24
The trouble with that is that then you have to actually figure
15:27
out what it is that
15:27
SPEAKER_01: you've got to offer,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: and that can be challenging.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: But I agree, it's good advice, and I think just doing it over and over.
15:36
That was one thing that Matt said that kind of made it sort of
15:41
click in for me,
15:42
which was,
15:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:44
you just do it every week for the rest of your life and you
15:48
might get a cartoon in
15:49
SPEAKER_01: the New Yorker.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: And so that was my thing.
15:52
I was like,
15:52
okay,
15:53
yeah,
15:53
I'm going to,
15:54
I'm going to treat it like a bootcamp.
15:55
I'm going to get up every day and I'm going to try and come up
15:58
with X number of ideas.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the week, I've got some cartoons.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: The worst thing is I've got a whole bunch of cartoons.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: The best thing is you might sell every now and then.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the commitment you have to make to do it anyway.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: And then what happens?
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Life of a drawing person, I suppose.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
16:15
there's different cartoonists who have different kind of ideas
16:19
or processes about
16:20
SPEAKER_00: it.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: But on average, it's pretty much that.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: It's just keep pitching, keep pitching, keep pitching.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Worst case, you have a bunch of cartoons.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And I saw Avi Steinberg had a...
16:31
He like prints all of his art or he has like originals and he
16:34
just has this stack.
16:35
It's this fucking massive stack of paper this big of cartoons
16:39
that he's pitched.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I've never seen it visualized like that.
16:43
I've never seen someone actually stack their pitches like that,
16:46
their batches.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
16:48
SPEAKER_00: wow,
16:48
that's so many young cartoonists should see that because that
16:52
stack of paper is the
16:54
SPEAKER_00: job,
16:55
SPEAKER_00: basically.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of people think...
16:57
SPEAKER_00: when they ask you about New York cartoons, they're like, oh, great.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: So you just draw a cartoon a day?
17:01
Or do you,
17:02
you know,
17:02
it's like,
17:03
you're,
17:03
you know,
17:06
you're guaranteed to get in.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: It's like, absolutely not.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Even people,
17:09
SPEAKER_00: even Rose Chast,
17:09
SPEAKER_00: who's,
17:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:10
SPEAKER_00: people on contract still aren't guaranteed publication.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Mike Rowe just said in the chat that Rose Chast has a massive statue.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: I bet.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: I bet hers goes to the moon.
17:20
But it's one of those things that like,
17:21
if you love it,
17:22
you just keep doing it.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a compulsion at that point.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you sort of, yeah, it's like anything.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Once you've done it long enough that it's in a habit,
17:35
SPEAKER_01: then the days you don't do it,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: you feel it,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: and you kind of feel like you want to get back to it.
17:40
I had a few moments where I guess the submission process was on
17:46
pause for whatever
17:47
SPEAKER_01: reason,
17:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:48
SPEAKER_01: life events,
17:48
SPEAKER_01: that sort of thing.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: Then you realize when you get back to it how,
17:55
how disciplined you do need to be but once you're in the once
17:58
you're in the mode
17:59
then you you can yeah it's good i i i mean i find you do a
18:04
whole bunch of stuff so
18:05
i do i do three things yeah well i mean but but within them
18:09
you're doing so there's
18:11
SPEAKER_01: a question i was going to ask you is
18:13
SPEAKER_01: You know,
18:13
SPEAKER_01: I find when I do my batches,
18:16
SPEAKER_01: the ideas I come up,
18:17
SPEAKER_01: it's not like I'm sitting down saying,
18:19
SPEAKER_01: right,
18:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to come up with New Yorker ideas.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:22
Usually I'm trying to make them funny and I'm trying to take
18:25
them in a certain
18:25
SPEAKER_01: direction,
18:26
SPEAKER_01: but quite often they will stimulate things that become an idea elsewhere.
18:29
Do you have a different process for your cartoon ideas from
18:35
your standup or,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: other,
18:38
SPEAKER_01: is it a different,
18:38
SPEAKER_01: because I
18:40
I've read books about joke writing,
18:45
a million of them,
18:46
and I'm still absolutely terrible at it.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: I still basically have to stumble on
18:55
So I'm interested to know what the difference is or if there is
18:58
a difference.
18:59
Well,
18:59
speaking of Bob Mankoff,
19:02
I feel like he was kind of born as more of like a stand-up
19:05
comic.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: His brains kind of work more like a stand-up than a cartoonist.
19:08
And I remember talking to him about it a while ago because I
19:12
think he kind of in
19:13
SPEAKER_00: the back of his head thought he might be a comedian.
19:16
when he was growing up but then it's because the way he
19:20
developed ideas or you know
19:22
how you talk to different cartoonists and they have a different
19:24
process but I when
19:26
I get like a nugget of an idea part of me now just
19:29
automatically knows whether it's
19:30
going to be a new yorker cartoon or a bit on stage or what like
19:35
what medium it's
19:36
going to lend itself to sometimes I'll try both rarely I'll try
19:41
it in both I'll be
19:42
SPEAKER_00: like oh this could work on stage this could work as a cartoon
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I think after a while,
19:47
you just develop a filtration system of knowing what's going to
19:50
work where.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: There's a book called The Comedy Bible.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: It's Judy Carter.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I think every comedian has this book,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: along with every other book about comedy writing that exists.
20:01
And you can read all the comedy books you like,
20:03
but you're never really going to...
20:05
like without getting on stage and having to try it out and see
20:08
what works and what
20:09
SPEAKER_00: doesn't and sort of A-B test jokes and ideas and,
20:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:15
SPEAKER_00: tweak them a little bit,
20:16
change the word economy or the order of the words or the setup
20:20
or any of that
20:20
SPEAKER_00: stuff.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know what it's like.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: You sort of, the mechanics of it.
20:24
become a skill it's like a 10 000 hours thing so yeah my
20:29
process i i have uh aqua
20:30
notes in the shower like waterproof shower uh like oh notepad
20:33
in the shower it was
20:34
really helpful didn't even know they existed yeah i should i
20:37
really should be
20:38
getting a kickback from these people because they i talk about
20:40
this all the time
20:41
but some of the best ideas i have are like out walking i have a
20:44
you know notes app
20:44
in my phone or a little notepad and in the shower i have like
20:48
waterproof notes
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Because as you say,
20:49
SPEAKER_00: you don't sit down and go,
20:50
SPEAKER_00: all right,
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to come up with some New Yorker ideas.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: No.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: You flip open your sketchbook,
20:54
SPEAKER_00: your notepad,
20:55
SPEAKER_00: your notes app,
20:55
SPEAKER_00: and you go,
20:56
SPEAKER_00: oh,
20:56
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
20:56
SPEAKER_00: this looks like I wrote this when I was drunk.
20:58
It's like another person wrote this,
20:59
and it's actually building off the idea.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: And it depends what you wrote down for yourself.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: You write down puppy vomit.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: You're like, wait, what was that?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: What was puppy vomit?
21:10
SPEAKER_00: You're just trying to remember the bit.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: It's not you sure that wasn't a shopping list.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: It could have been a shopping list, that's true.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely right.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
21:19
SPEAKER_00: what's your,
21:20
SPEAKER_00: like,
21:20
SPEAKER_00: how do you go from,
21:21
SPEAKER_00: like,
21:21
do you start with just like the nugget of whatever you write
21:24
down in your notes app
21:25
SPEAKER_00: or your sketchbook and then like build it out?
21:27
SPEAKER_00: I know it's so different for everyone, but what's yours?
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
21:33
I'm constantly trying to figure out a sort of a method that's
21:39
going to work,
21:40
SPEAKER_01: that's going to lead to ideas.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
21:45
And I find that I find one that's working and then it gets
21:48
stale and then I have to
21:49
SPEAKER_01: try and find another one.
21:50
And what's weird is I never go back to one that I,
21:53
that I was doing six months ago.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: So I, I think it's like, I just, I don't know what it is.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: I think.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Speaking of the pandemic,
22:04
SPEAKER_01: when you're allowed to go back in coffee shops again,
22:08
it very quickly dawned on me how important just a five-minute
22:12
stroll to a coffee
22:13
shop and bumping into people and seeing things was just to
22:17
generate ideas.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: You don't realize how much that stimulation does something to you.
22:22
And so I think in some ways,
22:24
when you're in the sketchbook,
22:25
it's the wrong place to be.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: You just need to be
22:28
SPEAKER_01: you need to be, you need to be out and about and doing stuff.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: And then, then you stumble into things.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's where it starts.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
22:36
SPEAKER_01: quite often I do,
22:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
22:39
SPEAKER_01: I,
22:40
SPEAKER_01: my,
22:40
SPEAKER_01: my kind of,
22:41
SPEAKER_01: my comfort zone,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: if you like,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: is,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: is putting together those kind of triplet cartoons.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: Some people call them triptychs, but that feels very hoity toity to me.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like a title and then three things underneath.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think that they,
22:59
SPEAKER_01: I quite often find I have an idea that I want to take in that direction.
23:02
And they take a bit longer,
23:04
but they're very satisfying when you land them.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: And my first, I find it very hard to write a joke.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: So I naturally kind of drag in that direction.
23:17
And then if I get an idea I really like,
23:20
it gets from being one of those,
23:22
it turns into a book.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: which is like this one, where it's just idea after idea after idea.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And you've probably noticed,
23:29
SPEAKER_01: but each page is kind of like a triptych that became,
23:33
SPEAKER_01: I just called it a triptych.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: What an idiot.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: No, but I get it.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: It's the appropriate word to know.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:39
These ideas,
23:40
like any coachingist who's done one of these,
23:43
you know,
23:43
you kind of like,
23:45
SPEAKER_01: You come up with eight ideas.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: You pick the three best ones.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: You juggle them around a bit.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Hey, presto.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: But with this book, I got to do all eight ideas on each different page.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: So that's basically what this became.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: But anyway,
23:59
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what the question was,
24:00
SPEAKER_01: but I use it as an excuse to come back to my book.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: No, because I really want to get into the book.
24:06
And we've got a lot more people,
24:07
but a lot of people have joined us since we started.
24:10
So anyone who's just joining us,
24:11
if you draw me anything,
24:12
I'm Jason Chatfield.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm a cartoonist and comedian in New York,
24:15
SPEAKER_00: and I'm talking with Toronto-based British cartoonist Tom Chitty,
24:19
SPEAKER_00: who has an amazing new book.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Fuel Citizen.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, dual citizen, yes.
24:24
I'm also a dual citizen now,
24:25
just so I can't get turfed out with a stroke of a sharpie.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: The new book,
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Nooks and Crannies of New York,
24:31
SPEAKER_00: which is from the Chronicles of Baron von Schugenheimer,
24:36
SPEAKER_00: truly one of the...
24:40
most immersive country experiences and writing reading
24:44
experiences you'll ever have
24:46
there's a there's this little prologue and i is this true or
24:50
did you make this up
24:51
because it's so good the great grandfather story is this true
24:54
yeah it's i mean
24:56
SPEAKER_00: everything in the book is true all right okay don't get cute with me
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, we had a discussion.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm working with Michael Gerber,
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Laura Fox at Bystander,
25:10
and we had a discussion about whether or not I was capable of
25:13
keeping up the
25:14
SPEAKER_01: pretense and very quickly discovered that it's not my thing.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: all I can say is like,
25:24
SPEAKER_01: I can't confirm whether any of it is true,
25:27
SPEAKER_01: but the beginning,
25:28
SPEAKER_01: the beginning is true.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: So, or at least it's true enough.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: So yes,
25:31
SPEAKER_01: my great grandfather,
25:32
SPEAKER_01: uh,
25:34
SPEAKER_01: did,
25:34
SPEAKER_01: uh,
25:34
SPEAKER_01: travel the seas in the,
25:36
SPEAKER_01: in the Royal Navy and then in the merchant fleet,
25:39
he did come back with a whole bunch of weird stuff to look at
25:41
photographs of like
25:44
SPEAKER_01: really strange photographs and all that kind of stuff.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: So, so yeah, I mean, it's, it's true.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it, you know,
25:52
SPEAKER_01: in the way that a lot of biographies are true.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Still are.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: Not really.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it starts.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: And then,
26:00
SPEAKER_01: but I sort of,
26:02
SPEAKER_01: I used it as a kind of,
26:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's obvious,
26:08
SPEAKER_01: but it's a way to sort of explain what the rest of the book is doing,
26:12
SPEAKER_01: which is sort of leaning into what you imagine things are or could be.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Which is a kind of like childlike approach to,
26:24
SPEAKER_01: to,
26:24
SPEAKER_01: uh,
26:25
SPEAKER_01: I,
26:25
SPEAKER_01: I like to call it well-researched nonsense.
26:28
So you really,
26:28
you really figure out what was going on and what was possible.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: And then you come up with something that,
26:37
SPEAKER_01: that it was sort of off to the side,
26:39
SPEAKER_01: if that makes sense.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: So there's a,
26:41
SPEAKER_01: there's a chat,
26:42
SPEAKER_01: for example,
26:42
SPEAKER_01: there's a chapter on,
26:44
SPEAKER_01: um,
26:45
are trolls of the interborough tunnels who are Germanic trolls
26:48
who arrived and they
26:49
SPEAKER_01: make furniture and stuff.
26:51
I had to make sure that it was correct that the tunnels existed
26:55
where I was placing
26:56
SPEAKER_01: them in time.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: So there is some research preceding the absolute buffoonery.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
27:06
SPEAKER_00: so I want to share my screen right now on my...
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Which is...
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I want to see if I can share the...
27:19
SPEAKER_00: What do you call it?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: The PDF.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, a page of the PDF.
27:25
And I've never done this before,
27:27
so you're my...
27:29
While you're doing that,
27:30
I shall share a page.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, great.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll just hold this up.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: This is Gosh and Wednesday.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Love this.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Gosh and Wednesday.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: They invented the metal Mosey, which is like a little robot legs.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: I think it, what did I say?
27:48
SPEAKER_01: Our finest leg machine yet.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: They appear throughout the book.
27:51
They're New York's greatest contraption ears,
27:54
and they build all sorts of robots and things.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: This is what I mean about the,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: even at the,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: so at the very end,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: there's this,
28:03
SPEAKER_00: I say at the very end,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: towards the end of the book,
28:08
SPEAKER_00: there's a,
28:09
SPEAKER_00: there's these clockwork creatures.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: There's the Goshen Wednesday's animated mechanicals.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: And the names that you give these things,
28:20
SPEAKER_00: this is what I was talking about with like Silmarillion,
28:22
like Tolkien had to come up with all these different like
28:25
languages and names.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Tolkien as well.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: So we are, what was it?
28:29
SPEAKER_01: Tolkien, Adams and Radiohead setting the bar very high.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: We have an episode title.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm quoting you on my website.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: This is as good as Charles Adams, Tom York, and Tolkien, yeah.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: The Schneek's Belgian magic, the hot dogs.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: One of the great, I love this illustration, I'm going to show it now.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: The illustration of Schneek's
28:59
SPEAKER_00: This is a Schneek's pedal-powered hot dog production.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: We've got the griddle, the mushrooms and spices.
29:06
This is the plunger,
29:08
the shroom rumbler,
29:09
the link snipper,
29:10
and the bladder warmer.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: This is... I mean...
29:15
SPEAKER_00: This is, if not the ramblings of a madman, it's a genius.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: In addition to his novel sausages,
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Schneek is credited with the invention of the mobile hot dog cart.
29:26
This sturdy tricycle had a built-in pedal-powered production
29:29
mechanism so that
29:30
SPEAKER_00: salesmen could replenish their stock on the go.
29:34
This is just one of a billion little,
29:38
you know,
29:38
illustrations in the book.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: It's unbelievably just detailed and creative.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: The secret ingredients,
29:44
SPEAKER_00: the little finger nests,
29:46
SPEAKER_00: the pugnacious dwarf,
29:48
SPEAKER_00: the French apron,
29:49
SPEAKER_00: the cow pie,
29:51
SPEAKER_00: devil's library,
29:52
SPEAKER_00: which sounds like a sex move.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: All of these things.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: I think my parents might be watching Catholic.
29:58
Yeah.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Sneeks hot dogs.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: The famous Belgian magic.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: You never forget your first sneeks.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: You don't.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: How do you come up with this stuff?
30:10
SPEAKER_01: Where does this come from?
30:12
it's actually,
30:13
this is a good,
30:14
this is a good,
30:15
uh,
30:15
uh,
30:16
chapter to,
30:17
to look at.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: I, I, so much of it is like family stuff.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: Like my, my, my family reading this will recognize all sorts of things.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: There's a, there's a recipe.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: I, I don't know if I kept it in.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: It's a recipe for grandma's cookies.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
30:33
Um,
30:34
which is like a,
30:34
it's a ridiculous recipe,
30:36
but it includes specular biscuits.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: And we, when, when we were young, we lived in Holland and,
30:42
Um,
30:43
Specky Last Biscuits is something that sort of stayed in the
30:45
family ever since.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: So,
30:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:46
SPEAKER_01: when,
30:47
SPEAKER_01: whenever I can't,
30:48
SPEAKER_01: whenever I need some sort of inspiration,
30:50
SPEAKER_01: I just borrow it from somewhere in the family,
30:53
SPEAKER_01: you know?
30:53
SPEAKER_01: So I think,
30:54
SPEAKER_01: um,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: I think that's,
30:57
SPEAKER_01: they say,
30:57
SPEAKER_01: write what you know,
30:58
SPEAKER_01: and what I know is my family a nonsense.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: So, so you've got...
31:04
SPEAKER_00: That's what you've got.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Can I tease some of these chapters for people?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah, yeah.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Please do.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to put the link to the Kickstarter in the recap,
31:13
SPEAKER_00: which I'll post tomorrow,
31:14
SPEAKER_00: because I listen back to these and then I write up a recap.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Great, thank you.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: We've got the Kips Bass Snapper is one of my favorite.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: The way that the words sort of
31:26
run together their funny sound like the phonetics of just the
31:30
sounds of them are so
31:31
funny uh trolls of the interbury tunnels the wormhole theater
31:35
ghost league baseball
31:38
ghost league baseball i printed out ghost league baseball so
31:41
here's a whole bunch
31:42
of yeah uh ghost league teams there's the the new one is the
31:47
the mysterios uh i'm
31:48
quite fond of the um i can't get it where is it it's the other
31:52
side it's the other
31:53
SPEAKER_01: side uh
31:55
SPEAKER_01: The Los Angeles Illusionists.
31:57
Yeah,
31:58
that's a baseball league that really did exist,
32:00
but nobody else spoke of it.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Ghost league baseball.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: Remember, it's all true.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: I told you, it's all true.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: No, of course.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: I believe every word.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Lady Granula Sainsbury is benefactor to American underground baseball.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: This is the ghost baseball league.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Chad Bush hits a homer for the Mysterios.
32:19
this is insane these faces the style the detail the just like i
32:24
said the world
32:25
building it's just this is why you can't just like flick
32:27
through this book casually
32:29
it's such a an immersive once you're in you're in it's just
32:33
it's a whole well thank
32:33
SPEAKER_01: you for immersing yourself i know that's quite hard in a pdf
32:37
SPEAKER_00: No, it is.
32:39
It's truly,
32:39
that's a credit to you because I,
32:41
you know,
32:41
have the attention span of a net.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: So this really drew me in because of all the detail and the characters.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And look at this, Pej Wang.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Hodge Wang,
32:53
SPEAKER_00: starting pitcher for the New York Mysterios,
32:55
SPEAKER_00: 1892 to 1906,
32:56
SPEAKER_00: famous for his unique penguin wing throwing actions.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: What can I tell you?
33:04
SPEAKER_00: You truly are a boffin.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Now,
33:09
people who have watched these before know that halfway through
33:16
I flip the camera
33:17
SPEAKER_00: and start scribbling and by no means am I no longer listening.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: In fact,
33:20
I'm probably more intently listening because I've sort of
33:23
focused more when I'm
33:24
SPEAKER_00: drawing.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have the same thing.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I do.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: It stops your...
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it stops you looking around, doesn't it?
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to flip the camera.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Anyone – so E.R.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Flynn's asking about the book.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm going to put the link to the Kickstarter in the recap.
33:47
But if you go – is it baronsguide.com where you can find –
33:50
Yeah,
33:50
I can tell you.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: So he's on Instagram,
33:55
SPEAKER_01: although Instagram's not particularly useful these days,
33:58
SPEAKER_01: but he's baronsguide on Instagram.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: The website is baronsguide.com.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: Right.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: There's also, let's try and pretend.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: He writes a Baron's Guide to everything every week.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: So he's been to Philadelphia and Halifax, Nova Scotia so far.
34:19
So if you go to signup.baronsguide.com or just go to the
34:24
website,
34:25
you'll see a link.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: And you can sign up for weekly dispatches from all over the world.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: And the last thing I'll say is if the Kickstarter goes live on April 1st,
34:34
but if you go to kickstarter.com and search Nooks and Crannies
34:41
of New York,
34:42
SPEAKER_01: it will come up.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: It's the only one called Nooks and Crannies of New York.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Which is surprising, but yeah.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Can I turn my camera?
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: Camera button with a flicky little... With a flicker.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I'll try.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm such a mess here.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: I know you use, was it the Staedtler fineliners?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Are you still using those?
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I am.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Here is one.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Ah, very nice.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: The 0.3, is that?
35:19
SPEAKER_01: The 0.3, yes.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: The 0.3.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Some of the best cartoonists use that pen.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is about that particular line weight.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: It reduces well.
35:31
I like the idea of a 0.1,
35:35
but I've tried it and I break the nib every time.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh, is that right?
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Apologies for my wobbliness.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Does it matter what we draw?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Not really,
35:47
although the chat has jumped right in and we're off to the
35:51
races with some
35:55
SPEAKER_00: suggestions.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Hugh Walker has suggested frog sitting on bat and thinking better of it.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's an actual animal bat or a baseball bat.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to start.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
36:08
Mike Rode also mentioned that if you just look up Chitty on
36:11
Kickstarter,
36:12
it also comes up.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: So if you just want to type in your last name.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the experiment.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: Much appreciated.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:19
So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about just earlier you
36:23
mentioned the
36:26
importance of just getting out and moving when you're trying to
36:32
get your brain
36:33
SPEAKER_00: going.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: I read this book called Daily Rituals by Mason Currie.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And I had him on the show too.
36:41
And it's like poets and composers and writers and artists and
36:47
all these different
36:49
SPEAKER_00: creative people across the hundreds of years.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them just didn't know each other,
36:54
SPEAKER_00: but there's these correlations,
36:55
SPEAKER_00: there's these common things across all these different creators.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: And one of them was most of them started doing their...
37:06
SPEAKER_00: sort of main or best work right after they woke up in the morning.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: They weren't necessarily early risers,
37:13
SPEAKER_00: but when they did wake up,
37:14
SPEAKER_00: that's when they started working.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: And the other one was they all had a walk in their daily routine.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Um...
37:22
SPEAKER_00: For some reason,
37:23
that was the one thing that they all sort of had was some
37:25
perambulatory sort of
37:27
SPEAKER_00: creative...
37:28
SPEAKER_00: That's how they came up with their ideas or thought about...
37:30
Even like scientists and stuff who were like working on a
37:34
theorem or something or
37:35
SPEAKER_00: an experiment,
37:36
SPEAKER_00: they would all use walking as their way of developing their ideas.
37:40
So there's something to what you were saying about even the
37:42
walk to the coffee shop
37:43
SPEAKER_00: or interacting with the world.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: I think I heard on some...
37:49
podcast or other that just the the moving around uh is good for
37:55
human beings in
37:56
general like some there's something about seeing the horizon
38:00
and moving through it
38:01
or something that we're supposed to do i don't know if that you
38:05
know i don't know
38:06
SPEAKER_01: if it's true but it sounded it sounded interesting anyway
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're in Toronto, right?
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Do you sort of have a bit of a morning routine?
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a dog or anything you have to walk?
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Or do you go out?
38:20
No,
38:20
my morning routine is preparing a lunch for my son and dropping
38:27
him off at school.
38:29
And then I usually do go to the coffee shop and try and
38:33
download whatever is
38:34
SPEAKER_01: floating around in my brain.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: That's the morning routine.
38:39
I did get in the habit a while ago of going out for a walk in
38:43
the morning,
38:44
SPEAKER_01: not particularly for that reason,
38:45
SPEAKER_01: but just because it's fun.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: But now perhaps I'll get back into it.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: Now I realize there's a point to it beyond just the fresh air.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: It's harder in the winter, though.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: It is.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it gets so cold up there.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Sorry to interrupt.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: What's this frog supposed to be doing again?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Sitting on a bat and thinking better of it.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I've messed up the mouth.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: Not at all, no.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: I hope people will forgive me.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a better frog than mine.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the hell my frog's doing.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: I like the eyes.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: Good call on the eyes.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: Those vertical pupils.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever look at, you know, Dan Perraro?
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever look at Bizarro, that construct?
39:30
SPEAKER_01: Bizarro does ring a bell, but I can't say I'm an expert.
39:36
no right i only asked because i mean he and uh waino who now uh
39:41
draws it um always
39:42
had this really nice similar to you had this real control over
39:45
like it was it was
39:47
very deliberate hatching it was like it was only ever what it
39:50
needed to be and
39:50
nothing else it was never like this excessive hatching for
39:54
cross hatching sake just
39:55
to fill space it was like it was creating dynamics and shape
39:58
and shadow and
40:00
and uh it and texture as well which is honestly it's pretty
40:04
hard to do i i have not
40:06
got the hang of it if i'm honest um yeah but you i mean i've
40:11
watched you draw a
40:12
whole bunch of things and you're you you do have control of
40:16
whatever it is that you
40:17
do your dogs that you draw are fantastic i do love drawing dogs
40:23
that is that is my
40:24
SPEAKER_00: favorite thing in the world to draw um
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
40:27
I think it's just that I didn't go to art school and I still
40:29
feel like a bit of a
40:31
fraud sometimes when I see people actually using techniques and
40:36
methods that,
40:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: properly,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: in the way that it's like,
40:39
SPEAKER_00: oh,
40:40
SPEAKER_00: that's what that's for.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: So Bizarro, your stuff and the stuff in Bizarro always remind me of that.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: I think that...
40:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did go to art school, but not really.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: I did.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: I,
40:51
instead of going to university for the first thing I applied to
40:54
university,
40:54
SPEAKER_01: I kind of chickened out and went and did a,
40:57
in the UK to do a foundation course before you've got a proper
41:01
school to do it.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: Um,
41:03
so I did one of those and then I ended up going to university
41:06
to do something quite
41:07
SPEAKER_01: different.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: But, um, what did you do at the university?
41:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh, politics and history.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
41:17
SPEAKER_01: to be honest,
41:18
SPEAKER_01: I did beer drinking and soccer playing,
41:21
but it wasn't until I went back years later to do animation
41:26
that I really,
41:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:28
SPEAKER_01: that was really what I should have been doing to start with.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: But you don't know when you're young, you just do what you do.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
41:34
Do you ever use any of that,
41:35
any sort of the politics and history stuff in your work?
41:38
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of history stuff in your work, I find.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I did.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I do.
41:47
I think the sort of politics history that I think about these
41:55
days is just,
41:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:56
SPEAKER_01: an adult living in the world.
41:57
It has nothing to do with my studies that I've completely
42:01
forgotten from when I was younger.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you...
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I try and be political in my cartoons,
42:10
SPEAKER_01: but mostly I find that it's just not my wheelhouse.
42:17
Every now and then I will write in huge capital letters in my
42:21
book,
42:22
don't forget to be silly.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't really want to get dragged into all the other.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: For one thing,
42:29
SPEAKER_01: there are political cartoonists out there who are incredibly good at it,
42:33
SPEAKER_01: so why would I bother?
42:34
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: But do you do political cartoons?
42:37
SPEAKER_01: I can't really remember.
42:38
Yeah,
42:39
I mean,
42:39
I do the daily sometimes for The New Yorker and I do it with a
42:43
sort of reluctance.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: I did editorial cartoons.
42:47
It was my first sort of big cartooning job was for the local
42:49
papers doing political cartoons.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: every day and I just kind of felt like after a while especially with the
42:58
introduction of the comment section online it just felt very
43:03
kind of like people
43:04
having a take for the sake of having a take people being the
43:08
online disinhibition
43:08
SPEAKER_00: effect really made people act like complete
43:11
SPEAKER_00: you know, tosses.
43:12
As soon as they had the opportunity to just be mean for
43:15
absolutely no reason and
43:16
not constructive or engage in a conversation that had really
43:19
anything other than,
43:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:21
SPEAKER_00: just to make themselves feel better about themselves.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: It changed.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: The dynamics changed.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And then when this new era that we're in kind of came about,
43:32
SPEAKER_00: the threats kind of started,
43:34
SPEAKER_00: which was a whole new dynamic.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of new.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, cartoonists have always had...
43:40
SPEAKER_00: to some degree,
43:41
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:41
SPEAKER_00: some weird sort of people,
43:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:44
SPEAKER_00: threats of some kind or another,
43:46
SPEAKER_00: but this is a different tone.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: It just feels different, like more menacing, more unhinged.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, I do, but I do it with great trepidation.
43:56
By the way,
43:57
Paul,
43:58
he suggested that maybe the frog is catching a fly ball.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice idea.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: So I've just sketched that.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Here's a frog catching a fly ball.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to draw on
44:10
SPEAKER_01: the Baron Braun-Sugenheimer holding a bat.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
44:15
I haven't actually drawn him for a while,
44:17
so the head is going to be challenging.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most of the drawings were done quite some time ago.
44:24
It's been sort of building websites and that sort of thing
44:26
recently,
44:27
but let's see how we go.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm leaving the head till last because it's scaring me,
44:31
SPEAKER_01: and I'm trying to...
44:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping that my brain will figure it out.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: When I start drawing him,
44:40
SPEAKER_01: If I don't get the nose right, it's all downhill from there.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: Well,
44:46
SPEAKER_00: by the way,
44:47
SPEAKER_00: anyone who hasn't subscribed yet,
44:49
SPEAKER_00: on the top left of your screen,
44:51
SPEAKER_00: there's a big orange button and it says subscribe.
44:54
So just click that and you'll automatically be subscribed to
44:57
Tom's amazing sub stack.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: He puts out stuff really, really great.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that was possible.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: Yes, please do.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: And thank you, Jake.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: Everyone should definitely subscribe.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: You're doing really, really good work on that.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: There's cartoonists who are on Substack who,
45:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
45:11
I try and talk to as many as I can and sort of highlight
45:15
different cartoonists'
45:16
SPEAKER_00: work,
45:16
SPEAKER_00: but everyone's trying to sort of figure out what Substack is for them.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: You want to do something a bit different,
45:24
SPEAKER_00: which is good because there is no right or wrong way to do it,
45:29
SPEAKER_00: really.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: It's just whatever you want to make it.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I started off doing silly little poems and things.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I thought maybe it would be a repository, is that the word?
45:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:49
Eventually,
45:50
it could become a book,
45:53
or it could be this,
45:54
that,
45:54
and the other.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, I just share.
45:59
a bunch of cartoons every week and see that seems to be what
46:02
people are after.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: So I'll just keep doing that.
46:05
SPEAKER_01: But I've been bugging them about this book for a few weeks,
46:08
SPEAKER_01: but hopefully they can tolerate that too.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, look at this.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to run out of space for his hair.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: Ah, it's interesting.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you start with the eyes and then go up to the hair.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: I started with the hair,
46:21
which is a huge mistake because now I'm running out of space
46:24
for the brow lines
46:26
SPEAKER_00: here.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:28
uh but yeah the you're not bothering people with the book i
46:32
think people are
46:33
excited to see that you're making what you're making and and
46:36
you've made this you
46:37
know incredible thing and that that they can they can see it
46:40
and they can help and
46:41
sort of bring it into the world and uh michael and laura um at
46:46
uh at bystander uh
46:47
if if you're listening and watching um and you haven't heard of
46:50
the american
46:51
SPEAKER_00: bystander you can find them
46:53
SPEAKER_00: online too.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Just look up American Bystander and you'll find them online.
46:59
It is interesting sort of seeing,
47:01
because that used to be a print publication for a long time.
47:05
Were you publishing cartoons in there when it was in its
47:08
original iteration?
47:12
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what issue I was in.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: I think I was in the first tent.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
47:19
And,
47:19
um,
47:20
and I mean,
47:20
it's still going,
47:21
I don't know,
47:22
are we in the thirties now?
47:23
SPEAKER_01: So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's brilliant.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: It's,
47:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:26
SPEAKER_01: it's full of,
47:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:29
SPEAKER_01: writers and,
47:30
SPEAKER_01: and,
47:31
SPEAKER_01: uh,
47:31
SPEAKER_01: comedians and cartoonists from,
47:33
SPEAKER_01: from all your favorite places.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: Um,
47:35
SPEAKER_01: and,
47:36
SPEAKER_01: and it's,
47:36
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
47:37
SPEAKER_01: they're,
47:37
SPEAKER_01: they're kind of raison d'etre,
47:39
SPEAKER_01: if you'll pardon the French,
47:41
SPEAKER_01: um,
47:42
SPEAKER_01: is to keep,
47:43
SPEAKER_01: keep print things alive,
47:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:44
SPEAKER_01: keep real things in,
47:46
SPEAKER_01: in your hand and,
47:47
SPEAKER_01: That's one thing I was thinking,
47:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
47:51
SPEAKER_01: maybe you've had the same experience,
47:53
SPEAKER_01: sort of this idea of,
47:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:57
trying to sell a book and try to put a real thing in the world
48:01
seems almost
48:01
SPEAKER_01: impossible.
48:02
But when you find an idea where you don't really care,
48:09
you just want to make it anyway.
48:11
I think that's,
48:11
I wonder if sometimes maybe that's not the worst thing in the
48:15
world,
48:15
that it's
48:17
If you're going to do it,
48:18
it really needs to be something that you're confident about.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: Something that you just want to exist whether or not anyone buys it.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: Not that I'm saying people shouldn't buy it.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying they definitely should buy it.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: It's not the be all and end.
48:31
It's one of those things where you just want to put this thing
48:34
out and you want it to exist.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good reason to do it.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: That's a good motivation to do it.
48:40
It's always great if it hits the list and it sells well and you
48:45
want people to enjoy it.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: No doubt.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: But really, the reason to do it is to enjoy doing it.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Right?
48:51
SPEAKER_01: Surely.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: What do they call it?
48:54
SPEAKER_01: The journey, not the destination.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds trite, but it's true.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I look at your work, right?
49:00
SPEAKER_00: And when I was looking through this book, there's so many.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm just going to show the book.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: Look at the detail in the back.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: Just in the background.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: The level of sort of, I guess, like,
49:16
attention to detail but like there's this comfort it's like i
49:19
can i can sense that
49:20
you're in this really nice headspace when you're drawing these
49:23
things you're you're
49:25
in the zone you're just sort of like you know your head is in a
49:30
comfortable space
49:32
where you can make these things and as you're drawing these
49:34
lines it just feels
49:35
SPEAKER_00: like everything's right in the world for a minute
49:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good observation because that's definitely how it feels.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
49:44
SPEAKER_01: I think,
49:45
SPEAKER_01: as I was saying earlier,
49:46
SPEAKER_01: I think it's not...
49:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of a relatively political person,
49:52
SPEAKER_01: but not in public and certainly...
49:56
SPEAKER_01: if I can avoid it, I don't want to be.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: So I think,
49:59
SPEAKER_01: I think drawing is a,
50:02
SPEAKER_01: it's a,
50:02
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:03
SPEAKER_01: it's a,
50:03
SPEAKER_01: it's a place,
50:04
SPEAKER_01: it's a place to go to be away from it for me.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: And,
50:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:06
SPEAKER_01: I just,
50:07
SPEAKER_01: I,
50:07
SPEAKER_01: I grew up,
50:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:08
SPEAKER_01: my dad,
50:10
SPEAKER_01: um,
50:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:11
SPEAKER_01: had me watching reruns of Monty Python and,
50:15
SPEAKER_01: um,
50:15
SPEAKER_01: I grew up with Fry and Laurie,
50:18
SPEAKER_01: uh,
50:18
SPEAKER_01: and,
50:18
SPEAKER_01: uh,
50:20
SPEAKER_01: French and Saunders,
50:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that ever made it to the States,
50:23
SPEAKER_00: but it does now,
50:25
SPEAKER_00: but yeah,
50:25
SPEAKER_00: it didn't.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:28
And,
50:28
and,
50:28
you know,
50:29
they're just so,
50:31
it's just pure silliness all the way.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: Um,
50:33
SPEAKER_01: and I think I,
50:34
SPEAKER_01: and I think I just,
50:36
SPEAKER_01: I like being in that place and it's kind of cool when you've,
50:40
SPEAKER_01: you have the opportunity to sort of,
50:42
SPEAKER_01: um,
50:43
SPEAKER_01: explore,
50:43
SPEAKER_01: explore yourself.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: But, um,
50:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's all those, yeah, Hail and Pace.
50:48
That might all have been complete nonsense that I'm trying to
50:50
focus on drawing and
50:52
SPEAKER_01: sort of...
50:53
SPEAKER_00: No,
50:53
SPEAKER_00: no,
50:53
SPEAKER_00: you're making perfect sense.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Like French and Saunders was always great.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Ab Fab, also Hail and Pace was a great one that I used to enjoy.
51:03
Um,
51:03
and there's just,
51:04
there's little details in your work that have that same
51:07
silliness.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a,
51:08
SPEAKER_00: there's a drawing of a guy,
51:09
SPEAKER_00: uh,
51:11
SPEAKER_00: there's a horse drawn carriage and he's,
51:13
SPEAKER_00: he's got this,
51:14
SPEAKER_00: there's this woman in the carriage.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: And then in the background, you didn't have to do this, but you did.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's so, it's just like, there's like Malcolm and Sons.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: And then next to it is a pub called the old grunt, which, um,
51:29
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for noticing.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: These are all deliberate.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: I've been into however many comic book stores through my life.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm not somebody who collects a particular...
51:46
SPEAKER_01: I had a friend,
51:47
SPEAKER_01: hi Andrew,
51:48
SPEAKER_01: if you're watching,
51:50
SPEAKER_01: who was a real Batman comic collector.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: But I was just like, pick up the thing that seems...
51:57
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, my light's just gone off.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: I'll see if I can move this one a bit closer.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
52:04
SPEAKER_01: I was just like,
52:05
SPEAKER_01: pick up the thing that looks cool,
52:07
SPEAKER_01: but I would have this experience where the cover would be amazing,
52:10
SPEAKER_01: and then I'd open it up,
52:12
SPEAKER_01: and the book inside was not really what the cover was telling me it was.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: Right, yes.
52:17
And so I sort of deliberately was trying to make sure that you
52:24
see all that detail
52:25
SPEAKER_01: on the cover,
52:26
SPEAKER_01: and then you don't.
52:27
And then you experience it again as you're working your way
52:30
through the book.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is why it took me three and a half years.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: I think, again, it's worth it.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: If you have an idea, it just felt like it was worth it.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
52:43
SPEAKER_01: everybody watching or everyone who buys it will have to be the judge,
52:46
SPEAKER_01: but it felt worth it to me.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: No, and reading it, it does feel like you have a real affection for it.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not a project that you're like pushing out like a kidney stone.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: You're genuinely enjoying this thing and it's falling out of you.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: And you can tell that you're actually, like you're having fun.
53:02
There's a real sort of sense of fun in the whole thing and that
53:05
sort of silliness
53:05
SPEAKER_00: that you're talking about,
53:06
SPEAKER_00: like don't forget to be silly.
53:08
That's a big sort of cornerstone of like what you can see in
53:12
your line and in your
53:14
SPEAKER_00: sort of in these...
53:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about your kaboons,
53:21
SPEAKER_00: these primates,
53:22
SPEAKER_00: these sort of feline-looking primates.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm drawing one right now.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: They're so much fun to draw.
53:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's such a silliness to them.
53:31
There's such a funny silliness to them,
53:33
like an otherworldliness to them,
53:35
you know?
53:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they're in the chapter, what's it called?
53:43
SPEAKER_01: Taxis du savoir-faire, I think it is.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: French Canadian taxi drivers who each have a caboon accompanying them.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: The caboons are, they're a really good judge of character.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: So they'll let the driver know whether or not he should pick up a fare.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:03
So,
54:04
sorry,
54:05
just to cut back again,
54:06
the frog is supposed to be thinking what?
54:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's thinking better of it.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking better of, he really wishes he wasn't on the bat.
54:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, he's probably regretting.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to draw that, so I'll just do an upset.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:22
frog um we've got a bunch of people who said that they signed
54:25
up to be notified
54:26
through kickstarter for the book so that's good and er flynn
54:28
said that bystander is
54:30
still a print publication uh i didn't realize it was still in
54:32
print that's my bad i
54:33
guess they're still going which is great um i uh paul said that
54:38
he was blown away
54:39
by your cover the cover you did for the american bystander he
54:42
said this looks like
54:43
SPEAKER_00: that cover times infinity this book
54:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it definitely felt like that, put it that way.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: But thank you for those kind words.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
54:54
SPEAKER_01: so I think I've drawn what we're supposed to draw,
54:56
SPEAKER_00: so I'm going to draw a kaboom here now as well.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to see a kaboom.
54:59
SPEAKER_00: Major Brent or Jiffles or Grumpol or Rachel the Wise.
55:02
Yeah,
55:03
well,
55:04
I tell you what,
55:04
when it's done,
55:06
somebody can give it a name in the comments.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: Who's Rachel the Wise named after this?
55:13
SPEAKER_01: Ah, well, Rachel the Wise is next to Grumpole, I think.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh, yes.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: And they may or may not be my parents.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: I had a feeling.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: I had a feeling that they were based on real people.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: Rachel uses kindness and Grumpol is always belching.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, wait a second.
55:38
Well,
55:39
I suppose,
55:39
I mean,
55:40
you know,
55:40
that's a lot of people's parents,
55:42
but that is...
55:44
SPEAKER_01: My father does a lot more than Belcher, I should say.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're living well if that's all you do.
55:52
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Brent is obviously a world-class sniffer,
55:55
SPEAKER_00: and Jiffels is an accomplished soprano,
55:58
which is great little character traits that you've drawn into
56:04
these characters.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking, you know, and I hate that my brain does this.
56:08
I really resent that this is something that now happens when I
56:11
look at work like this.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, when's the animated series coming out?
56:15
SPEAKER_00: As soon as there's like a world building thing,
56:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
56:17
SPEAKER_00: this would make such a good animated series.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: Well,
56:20
SPEAKER_01: basically,
56:21
as soon as anyone gives me loads of money and volunteers to do
56:25
all the work,
56:26
SPEAKER_01: that's roughly the time at which the animation series will come out.
56:30
right um so uh yeah i mean i i uh i've done some animation i'm
56:35
definitely planning
56:36
in the next few weeks to do some little bits and bobs to share
56:40
online but um yeah i
56:42
don't know uh it would be great to it'd be great to think that
56:46
i mean definitely
56:47
the plan is to do more i've got tons more ideas and i can take
56:50
him wherever and as
56:52
SPEAKER_01: i said the
56:53
SPEAKER_01: the weekly guide, um, is an ongoing thing.
56:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing drawings for that and writing, you know, crazy nonsense.
56:59
SPEAKER_01: So that's going to keep going.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: So, um, he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
57:05
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, who knows, you know, it'll end up happening, but.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: Now,
57:10
SPEAKER_00: we're approaching the hour,
57:11
SPEAKER_00: but before we wrap up,
57:14
SPEAKER_00: and I'm going to let you keep finishing your amazing kaboom there.
57:18
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about these roof maples or roof sayers,
57:21
because they were thought to live in disused water towers on
57:24
top of New York.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: buildings in New York City.
57:29
They were a clique of wizened women who could help retrieve
57:34
lost memories with the
57:35
SPEAKER_00: use of some carefully worded questions.
57:37
So this would gently entrance their clients and enable the
57:40
retrieval of seemingly
57:42
SPEAKER_00: forgotten thoughts.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: So in exchange for a golden tribute,
57:45
SPEAKER_00: they could discover the location of mislaid objects,
57:48
SPEAKER_00: recover marvelous inventions,
57:50
SPEAKER_00: and bring back the names and faces of long lost acquaintances.
57:54
SPEAKER_00: And there's this mesmerizing photo of a New York rooftop
57:58
SPEAKER_00: But this woman in the corner,
58:01
SPEAKER_00: sorry,
58:01
SPEAKER_00: a roof sayer,
58:04
SPEAKER_00: this guy walking up,
58:06
SPEAKER_00: a gentleman approaches a roof sayer in hopes of unthawing a memory,
58:12
SPEAKER_00: which is absolutely beautiful.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: The way that you've drawn these,
58:17
SPEAKER_00: the rooftops and the buildings and the water towers,
58:21
SPEAKER_00: it's beautiful stuff.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: It's really nice.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: That's very kind.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: And thanks for sharing so much.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: You're doing a great job, a better job than I would do.
58:29
SPEAKER_01: And it's much appreciated.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: No, of course.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: Neil wanted to ask about words which are inherently humorous.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about that?
58:40
SPEAKER_01: Words that are inherently humorous.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I used to have a website.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: Who asked that question?
58:48
SPEAKER_01: That's Neil Knuckley.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: Neil Knuckley, Uncle Neil.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
58:53
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say, that's somebody who knows me.
58:55
SPEAKER_01: I used to have a website called Words with Intrinsic Humor Value.
58:59
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
58:59
SPEAKER_01: And it was just a list of words like,
59:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
59:02
SPEAKER_01: you can probably think of them straight away,
59:03
SPEAKER_01: like balloon.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: Spoon.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, like K sound.
59:09
SPEAKER_01: Guff.
59:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just words that, so yeah.
59:11
I mean,
59:12
I think it's always been there,
59:13
this idea of coming up with,
59:17
yeah,
59:18
just the choice.
59:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I like, that's great.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: You need to send me that drawing of the Kaboom.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: I will.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: I will.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: If anybody can be bothered, they're welcome to name this Kaboon.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: And you've got to give him a trait as well.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
59:46
Sometimes I'll write down funny words when I think of them that
59:48
just sound funny.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: I can't quite think of where they fit.
59:54
SPEAKER_00: Wonky parsnip is something that occurred to me yesterday.
59:58
Wonky parsnip is something inherently funny about that
1:00:02
conversation of syllables.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, parsnip is definitely the funniest
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: The funny cousin of a carrot.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: Of a carrot.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: Kind of boring.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_00: This is unbelievable.
1:00:17
You just churned out this world-class illustration just while
1:00:20
we've been...
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh,
1:00:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't look too close to it.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: Very disappointed with this particular thing.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to flip back if I can.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_00: We'll flip back.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who has not already done so,
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: click this orange button just at the top of the screen here.
1:00:38
If you click that,
1:00:39
you'll automatically subscribe to Tom's amazing sub stack.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put the link to the Kickstarter in the replay,
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: which I'm going to send out tomorrow.
1:00:49
But in the meantime,
1:00:50
if you go to Kickstarter and just type in Chitty,
1:00:52
you will see the...
1:00:55
the Kickstarter for this amazing book that's being put out by
1:00:58
the American Bystander.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: Is it Bystander Books?
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: Is that the publishing arm of American Bystander?
1:01:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:01:09
you should get Michael on to talk about it because he would
1:01:11
tell me what the plan
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: is for that.
1:01:13
But I think Bystander Books is,
1:01:16
as far as I can recall,
1:01:17
what we've written in the seer.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_00: And I want everyone to subscribe to your website,
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: but also follow along baronsguide.com as well.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you get notifications,
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: if you sign up on Kickstarter,
1:01:36
you can put your email in and get notifications and updates on
1:01:39
the project as well.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: This was really fun.
1:01:42
I've been looking forward to this one because I use this really
1:01:45
as an excuse just
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: to talk to people whose work I love and then I get to talk shop and
1:01:50
and uh and scribble together so it's my favorite thing to do so
1:01:53
thank you for for
1:01:54
making time to do it no thank you you're a very good host and
1:01:57
uh and keep talking
1:01:59
to these people because i'm i'm watching and it's great oh good
1:02:02
something to have
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: on while you're drawing you know yeah absolutely yeah for sure
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you everyone for tuning in.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, go support Tom.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: And if you liked what you're seeing, please share this with friends.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_00: Share the book project with people who you think might like it.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: And I will see you next week on another edition of Draw Me Anything.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Tom, again.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: And have a great weekend, everyone.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, everyone.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: See you.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: Bye.